Listen, do you hear that?

Oops, not that. That's the result of the two pieces of pizza I had for dinner tonight.

That other thing, lurking in the shadows, but not evil-like. It's a magical sound. A glorious sound. It's the impending sound of school bells. It's nearly time for The Maven to shove her most of her parental responsibilities onto the government's shoulders for seven hours a day. Intrepid and Gutsy are going full time, baby. Back-to-bliss, here we come!

Oh, don't look at me like that. If you had spawned the gremlins you would also feel slightly giddy at the thought of sending them to school. I could put a positive spin on it if it makes me less of a creton. Let's say it's like a capture and release program. I'm simply releasing them into the wild to do what wild things do. I've raised them from pups and it's now time make sure I taught them all the important surival skills, like how to be cool enough to sit at the back of the bus.

I'm sharing them with my fellows. I'm helping people. I'm educating the masses on chaos control. I'm allowing the school faculty to put those long hours of emergency preparedness training into practice.

Look at how nice I am. I'm good at sharing. See me sharing? That's what I'm doing. I'm sharing my children with the world, right after I file down their fangs and claws a little and hide those adorable horns under some new hoodies.

It's been a long time since I've only had one child at home during the day. Nearly three years, if I count the year I did kill-me-now-childcare prior to Spawnling's hatching in October of 2006. Three years of wiping multiple noses, wiping multiple bums, wiping multiple fingerprints off the television. What is a girl to do when she's nearly alone?

I have so many plans. First of all, I hope to jump start the weight loss again. It's been a lazy August. I'm hovering right around 242lbs, which is 10 pounds lighter than when I started just under two months ago. If I average that out I've lost five pounds each month, with a week to go until we officially slide into September. On the 1st I will celebrate my 32nd year of awesomness and that will involve eating some anything-but-low-fat cake. Delish! Then, once the street party, parade and fireworks are over I'll need to get back into exercise and skinny-mindedness.

Spawnling and I will go for a walk every day with our dog who weighs less than what I've lost so far and is afraid of everything: cars, people, sand. Hopefully she'll just run the whole way so I can get some cardio.

The Spawn and I will go to museums and get cultured. We will visit the art gallery, where the artistic passion within us will ignite. We'll then return home and, after an organic, meatless lunch, I will write prose rich enough to make editors weep while he sculpts naked people out of playdoh.

We will go to playgroup where we will both learn some social skills and make new friends. We'll attend every week because the organic lunches and visits to the chiropractor will keep us healthy and strong. The flu? We shall balk at the flu! Ear infections? Only suckers get those, not fit, skinny people like us!

We will keep our house immaculate through careful organization and a lot of time on our hands. People will french kiss my floors as they fall head over heels in love with the cleanliness I will invoke. Spawnling will amuse himself as I clean by watching documentaries on endangered species, followed by reading library books and making crafts on how to save the rainforest.

Oh, and of course I'll have plenty of time to blog as well. I'll probably write three or four times a day with all the spare time I'll have!

Just nobody pinch me. Not for at least a month, ok?